Persepolis (comics)

Persepolis () is a series of autobiographical graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi that depict her childhood and early adult years in Iran and Austria during and after the Islamic Revolution. The title Persepolis is a reference to the ancient capital of the Persian Empire. Originally published in French, Persepolis has been translated to many other languages. , it has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

French comics publisher L'Association published the original work in four volumes between 2000 and 2003. Pantheon Books (North America) and Jonathan Cape (United Kingdom) published the English translations in two volumes – one in 2003 and the other in 2004. Omnibus editions in French and English followed in 2007, coinciding with the theatrical release of the film adaptation.

Due to its graphic language and images, there is controversy surrounding the use of Persepolis in classrooms in the United States. Persepolis was featured on the American Library Association's list of Top Ten Most Challenged Books in 2014.

Character list

Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood
Marjane (main character): nicknamed Marji, Marjane's life is depicted beginning with her early childhood. Growing up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, Marjane grows up in a family who is involved in the political unrest of Iran. This influences her world-view of oppression and its consequent rebellion. Eventually, her family sends her to Vienna in hopes of escaping the unrest of her home. Throughout her journey, she grows and matures while maintaining her rebellious nature, which sometimes gets her into trouble. Her family decides that she should leave Iran permanently, and she settles in Paris at the end of her story. In an article titled "Why I wrote Persepolis", Satrapi says "Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw, it seems a shame to choose only one. I think it's better to do both". Her first novel in this series, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, depicts her childhood experiences in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, while her subsequent novel, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, depicts her high school years in Vienna, Austria. Persepolis 2 also includes Satrapi's return to Iran where she attends college, marries, and later divorces before moving to France. Hence, the series is not only a memoir, but a Bildungsroman. Throughout both books, she focuses on the idea of "witnessing". Meaning, the motivation behind her writing involves describing her life from the viewpoint of someone viewing political and social chaos. This displays the "survival" aspect behind Satrapi as a young girl, and eventually young woman within this context. The influences of Satrapi's past education in Iran and Europe, and specifically German expressionism, can be felt throughout her writings and drawings as well. She seeks to create a visual context for not only those from the West, but also those from the Middle-East due to the lack of physical optics for this important time in history. The "graphic novel" label is not so much a single mindset as a coalition of interests that happen to agree on one thing—that comics deserve more respect. Nima Naghibi and Andrew O'Malley, English professors at Ryerson University, believe that Persepolis is part of a larger movement of autobiographical books by Iranian women. Satrapi wrote Persepolis in a black-and-white format: "the dialogue, which has the rhythms of workaday family conversations and the bright curiosity of a child's questions, is often darkened by the heavy black-and-white drawings". The use of a graphic novel has become much more predominant in the wake of events such as the Arab Spring and the Green Movement, as this genre employs both literature and imagery to discuss these historical movements. In an interview titled "Why I Wrote Persepolis", Marjane Satrapi said that "graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate."

Due to the nature of artistic choices made in Persepolis by virtue of it being an illustrated memoir, readers have faced difficulty in placing it into a genre. The term "novel" most commonly refers to books that are fiction. Thus, there is some controversy surrounding how to classify the genre of Persepolis, being that it is non-fiction. Nima Naghibi and Andrew O'Malley, illustrate this by stating how bookstores have had issues with shelving Persepolis under a single label. She argues that the stories these works contain are unique in themselves and challenge popular historical narratives.

An article from a journal on multicultural education written about teaching Persepolis in a middle school classroom acknowledges Satrapi's decision to use this genre of literature as a way for "students to disrupt the one-dimensional image of Iran and Iranian women." In this way, the story encourages students to skirt the wall of intolerance and participate in a more complex conversation about Iranian history, U.S. politics, and the gendered interstices of war." and strict social rules were forced upon women and were justified as protection. Satrapi's recount of her harassment by both male and female members of the Guardians of the Revolution because of her untraditional behavior and clothing exemplifies the hypocrisy of the state's beliefs. Worth proposes that the Guardians of the Revolution wield the cultural symbolism of the veil to oppress the social liberties of women, while Marji herself dons the symbolic veils of makeovers in Austria to escape social ostracization for her Iranian identity. The perceptions are challenged in the first chapter of Persepolis similarly titled "The Veil", where Satrapi illustrates young girls playing in the schoolyard with their veils. Constantino states that these childlike reactions to the horrors they are exposed to bridge the gap between human and history. The complicated historical facts of war are broken down into easily understandable moments in history, and help people understand what is usually complex and culturally intricate into relatable and educational. Seeing how children react to the violence of war makes Persepolis "easily accessible and seemingly transparent."

Publication history

The original French series was published by L'Association in four volumes, one volume per year, from 2000 to 2003. Marie Ostby, professor at Connecticut College, noted that, David Beauchard, a co-founder of L'Association, strove to "create a forum for more culturally informed, self-reflective work," especially consisting of female writers. Kristin Anderson of The Oxonian Review of Books of Balliol College, University of Oxford said, "While Persepolis feistiness and creativity pay tribute as much to Satrapi herself as to contemporary Iran, if her aim is to humanise her homeland, this amiable, sardonic and very candid memoir couldn't do a better job."

Awards, lists, and impact

Persepolis has won numerous awards, including one for its text at the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Scenario in Angoulême, France, and another for its criticism of authoritarianism in Vitoria, Spain. Marie Ostby points out that "Satrapi's work marks a watershed movement in the global history of the graphic novel," exemplified by the recent increase in use of the graphic novel as a "cross-cultural form of representation for the twenty-first century Middle East."

Despite the controversy surrounding the novel, Persepolis has turned into an important piece of literature which connects the Western and Iranian world. The graphic novel was awarded to Newsweeks Ten Best Fiction books list, and was created into a film in 2007. Reading Persepolis "lends itself to discussion of literary strategies and to teaching visual literacy, as well as to broader discussions of cultural difference as constructed in art and the media and as experienced in life". In 2024, it was ranked 48th of the 100 best books of the 21st century by the New York Times.

Censorship in the United States

Despite the positive reviews, Persepolis faced some attempts at censorship in school districts across the United States. In March 2013, the Chicago Public Schools ordered copies of Persepolis to be removed from seventh-grade classrooms after Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett determined that the book "contains graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use". Upon hearing about the proposed ban, upperclassmen at Lane Tech High School in Chicago flocked to the library to check out Persepolis and organized demonstrations in protest. CPS reinstituted the book in school libraries and classrooms.

In 2014, the book faced three different challenges across the United States, which led to its placement as #2 on the ALA's list of "Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2014". The first of these controversies occurred in Oregon's Three Rivers School District, where a parent insisted on the removal of the book from its high school libraries due to the "coarse language and scenes of torture". The book remained in libraries without any restriction after school board meetings to discuss this challenge. Another case of censorship arose in central Illinois' Ball-Chatham School District, where a student's parent stated that the book was inappropriate for the age group assigned. The parent also inquired into why Persepolis was assigned to the students to read on September 11.

Other

Film

Persepolis has been adapted into an animated film, by Sony Pictures Classics. The film was co-directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. It was voiced by Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux and Simon Abkarian. Debuting at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Persepolis won the Jury Prize but also drew complaints from the Iranian government before its screening at the festival. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2007 for best animated feature. The film has also received high honors, specifically, in 2007, when it was named the Official French Selection for the Best Foreign Language Film.

Persepolis 2.0

Persepolis 2.0 is an updated version of Satrapi's story, created by different authors who combined Satrapi's illustrations with new text about the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Only ten pages long, Persepolis 2.0 recounts the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12, 2009. Done with Satrapi's permission, the authors of the comic are two Iranian-born artists who live in Shanghai and who give their names only as Payman and Sina. The authors used Satrapi's original drawings, changing the text where appropriate and inserting one new drawing, which has Marjane telling her parents to stop reading the newspaper and instead turn their attention to Twitter during the protests.

Persepolis 2.0 was published online, originally on a website called "Spread Persepolis"; an archived version is available online.